‘True Detective’ Recap: Who’s Watching Behind the Mask?

A lot of people swore they’d give up on this season if Ray Velcoro survived last episode’s cliffhanger. But before we start complaining about cheap plot twists as a way to heighten suspense, let’s ask ourselves why Bird Mask would return to the scene of the crime.

Maybe Bird Mask left Ray alive because he wants the life of Ben Caspere, and his deep entanglement with Catalyst Holding, under scrutiny. Maybe Bird Mask drove Caspere’s body up Ventura Highway to guarantee it would be found, not to hide it. And maybe he came back for the hidden camera because he knows something about corruption: that who witnesses it is as important as who commits it.

Ray spends a few hours of rubber-blasted unconsciousness having a dream conversation with his cop dad (Fred Ward) while Conway Twitty covers “The Rose”. “You have your father’s hands,” his dad says, and that thought scares Ray as much as the blood on his chest. The dream prompts Ray to visit his dad and drop off his medicine (a baggie of cannabis). His dad has nothing but scorn for the LAPD since Darryl Gates left, and is instead content to watch stylized recreations of the good ol’ days, like Kirk Douglas’s Detective Story. Whatever Ray really wants to say to his dad, all he can do is watch, helpless to voice his endless aching need.

Ray and Ani’s detective work takes them to a post-apocalyptic film being shot in Vinci for tax breaks; Caspere had a producer’s credit. We are forced to imagine a Mad Max story of brutality and revenge; seeing it from behind the scenes, it looks cheap. The detectives get their best lead from a set photographer, who spends more time photographing women in animal hide bikinis than doing real work. A green screen looms in the background, reminding us that a significant amount of work will need to be done behind the scenes to turn this story into magic.

Paul works on his own, talking to hookers to see if anyone recognizes Caspere. A tip from a rentboy leads to Lux Infinitum, a dance club where johns pick up expensive pros all the time. Further conversation confirms that Caspere was a regular, not that he did much. “He liked to watch,” says one informant.

The tone in his voice suggests that watching is powerless, maybe even a little pathetic. But tell that to poor Stan, who’s found with his eyes burned out! Just like Caspere, coincidentally.

Stan’s one of Frank’s goons, and Frank certainly feels powerless when forced to watch idly. He can’t stand to watch his wife Jordan blowing him in a fertility clinic, and watching the Russian mobster Osip walk out of the Catalyst deal doesn’t help. But he flips that helplessness on its head by staging a very public beat down of Danny Santos — he of the “FUCK YOU” grill — while his former business associates look on. Frustrated by watching, Frank takes action, even if that action drags him back to the streets he tried to escape.

There are some times where watching is in fact a sign of helplessness. Paul and Ani stumble into multiple crime scenes at the Mayor of Vinci’s house: his trashy Russian wife huffing nitrous from a balloon, his son Austin flinging a prostitute from a balcony into a pool. But they get no hard leads and, as Austin points out, have no grounds for a search or an arrest. What little comic relief True Detective provides is likely to come in this manner: crimes so careless and extravagant that you have to laugh at them.

And it’s while tracking down their one solid lead — the Cadillac that Bird Mask ferried Caspere in, stolen from the film set — that Ani and Ray realize they’re being watched themselves. The Caddy bursts into flames while they’re questioning the driver, and the detectives chase the arsonist through an overpass shantytown. He’s swapped his Bird Mask for a white kabuki mask, and he nearly leads Ani into a collision with a truck.

This is a less jarring cliffhanger than last episode’s — and there’s a final scene with Frank and Jordan to tie us off — but it raises just as many questions. Why return the Cadillac to where you stole it from, only to light it on fire? Why linger to watch it burn and risk getting caught? To me, this only makes sense if Bird Mask’s agenda is to summon witnesses rather than silence them. He’s clearly covering for someone — himself, most likely — but he wants someone else dragged into the light. Those who can stand to watch will bear witness; those who can’t get their eyes burned out.

For those keeping score at home, here’s the progress our heroes made on their sexual hangups this week:

The State’s Attorney (Michael Wyatt of The Wire) suggests that Ani use her feminine wiles to entice Ray into implicating Vinci. “I’m not saying fuck him,” she laughs, but Ani does break up with her unsatisfying boyfriend shortly thereafter and stops by Ray’s place for some coffee.

Ray is no closer to admitting Chad isn’t his son. His doctor asks him point-blank if he wants to live, which I feel most doctors wouldn’t.

Paul nearly draws down on his friend for hinting at the intimacy they shared during combat, and needs a lot of booze to even keep up a conversation with some gay prostitutes.

Frank’s inability to perform is not alleviated by prying out a pimp’s grill (his aide brought those pliers with him, right? Or was it just serendipity?) and he shrugs off Jordan’s sexy apology.